UN COMMUNICATION ConCERNed International

The first attempt of a submission of this complaint at the UN Human Rights Committee was rejected because of some preconditions concerning jurisdiction. But, especially concerning the most important point mentioned by the Committee, the situation is different now. Nevertheless, critics try to get in constructive dialogue with CERN and the member states about LHC risks, which of course would be the most direct way to improve safety. Surely, the best would be if law suits were not necessary.

Please take look at the current two papers on top of the main site: Home

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Nov 20 2009: Official Press release of “ConCERNed International”

Today, an international group of critics and experts filed a complaint at the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations at Geneva concerning risks and dangers of the planned experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operated by the European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. The group impeaches the CERN member states, especially Switzerland, France and Germany, for not having carried out their legal responsibilities to ensure citizens’ safety.

Please take a closer look at this important paper including a detailed physical part describing the scientific discourse but also having a general and very profound approach to the topic with clear suggestions to improve safety and to urgently set new standards in high energy particle collider risk evaluation with many critical quotes of well known scientists from different disciplines, including physicists, astronomers, risk researchers, philosophers and legal experts.

Today, an international group of critics and experts filed a complaint at the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations at Geneva concerning risks and dangers of the planned experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operated by the European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. The group impeaches the CERN member states, especially Switzerland, France and Germany, for not having carried out their legal responsibilities to keep citizens safe.

After a year of repairs and redesign of some LHC safety systems due to a massive equipment failure, the LHC might be prepared to inject circulating beams as soon as Saturday 0 hour this week. First beam collisions at injection energies are planned to follow shortly afterwards.

The comprehensive and detailed communication to the UN was worked out by well-known critics and experts, relying upon the work of specialists on black holes, cosmic rays, particle physics and on risk researchers and several experts in international law. The communication clearly demonstrates concrete dangers arising from the planned high-energy experiments at the LHC and weaknesses in CERN safety assessments.

To guarantee safety, the complaint demands an external risk evaluation done by those without ties to CERN. Further, closer study of cosmic ray (AUGER observatory) and other recent empirical data highly relevant for the LHC-safety arguments is urgently requested, as is awaiting upcoming observing experiments in the atmosphere.

The legal aspectsfocus on the special responsibility of Switzerland, France and Germany (by territory as ownership principle and CERN-council membership) and addresses also the other CERN member states not having insured LHC-safety on life and environment according to Art. 2, 6 and 17 of the International Protocol of Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations.

This complaint is supported by several organizations and a wide group of international critics of the planned “big bang experiment”. It includes a clear and detailed description of the scientific discourse on several risks and dangers arising from the artifical and extreme states of matter planned to be created, such as risks from “micro black holes” and “strangelets” as described in a number of studies - and even dangers of transitions in the energy level of space.

Enclosed are critical studies of the method used in the CERN risk studies, one from members of the “Future of Humanity Institute” of the University of Oxford and a review on the LHC safety assessment process by risk assesment expert and ethicist Dr. Mark Leggett concluding that CERN at this date has fulfilled not more than a fifth of the necessary criteria expected for a modern safety study.

As long as there is no clear evidence that the possible production of “micro black holes” (expected to be created by many CERN scientists) pose neither long- nor short-term danger to life and to planet Earth, CERN and the member states should not aim for their production in high energy experiments at all. Instead, it has first to be demonstrated by observation and empirical tests, 1.: that the comparison of natural events in the atmosphere to the experiments at the LHC (as proclaimed by CERN) is legitimate in all necessary respects and 2.: that the possible mass production of micro black holes at particle colliders (as regarded possible by CERN) is clearly and 100% harmless. Several ongoing and planned experiments (Earth based and in the atmosphere) on high energetic cosmic rays are expected to throw light on these questions.

Thus, as long as the credentials of a safe operation of the big bang machine are not provided, no high energy collisions should be conducted at the LHC.

If necessary, also a claim for interim measures at the UN could follow.

Finally, the operation and planning of high energy colliders should be controlled and regulated by an agency similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency at the UN or directly established at the IAEA as soon as possible.

After a year of costly repairs following a massive accident, CERN may introduce beams again as soon as this weekend with no advance announcement unlike last year’s fanfare. Experiments (beam collisions) are planned for the following weeks, with increasing energies - intended to break a questionable ‘world record’ until Christmas. Maximum design capacities are planned to be conducted after further technical adjustments next year.

“conCERNed international” consists of different organizations and inividuals having established this complaint and consists of or is in direct contact with the most well known critics of the LHC project such as Prof. Otto Roessler, Dr. Walter Wagner and many others. The complaint provides many critical views of highly reputated independent experts from different fields, including physicists, astrophysicists, risk researchers, philosophers and legal experts.

[…] the lawsuits that have been placed against the company in Federal Courts. (to pdf: suit) and in Human Right Commissions all over the world,. CERN adduces Diplomatic Immunity that it achieved during the cold war as a […]

“Many of the physicists quoted in the media on LHC safety issues seem not to have engaged with the literature in any depth,” Prof. Eric Johnson told PhysOrg.com. “Physicists speaking to the public about the black-holes question portray it as a simple matter. It really is not. At the end of the day, the LHC may or may not be safe, but most of the arguments you hear in favor of the collider lack robustness.”

“The physicists have had their say. Now a legal study asks how a court might handle a request to halt a multibillion-dollar particle-physics experiment. The analysis makes for startling reading. […]
Today, we get a fascinating new perspective on the issue from Eric Johnson […]”

Legal expert Prof. Eric E. Johnson (University of North Dakota) profoundly analyses the discourse on dangers and risks at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operated by the European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland in a new independent and critical study.

His multi-disciplinary perspective covers legal and socio-psychological aspects (”groupthink”) and also reflects the physical discussion in many details:

The renowned “Technology Review” (MIT) has just published a very interesting article about Prof. Johnson’s study:

“The Case of the Collider and the Great Black Hole

The physicists have had their say. Now a legal study asks how a court might handle a request to halt a multibillion-dollar particle-physics experiment. The analysis makes for startling reading.
[…]
Today, we get a fascinating new perspective on the issue from Eric Johnson […]”

“Even a tiny chance of a black-hole catastrophe could be very significant as matter of equity before a court. The alleged downside, after all, is the disappearance of our planet down a cosmic drain. From my perspective as a lawyer, sizing up the merits of the case, I find the assurances provided by the particle-physics community to be quite lacking. In particular, I am struck by the fact that the safety assurances are based on scientific work that brazenly lacks independence.”

“…the history of the black-hole debate leaves me uneasy. There is a repeating pattern of airtight assurances—presented with utter conviction—that are quietly abandoned later when the scientific bedrock upon which they are based suddenly erodes.”

“My argument is one of law. My conviction is that, when a black-hole case arrives on a docket, no court should abdicate its role as a bursar of equity, even where, as here, the socio-political pressure to abstain will be immense, the factual terrain will be intensely intellectually challenging, and the jurisprudential conundrums are legion. At the end of the day, whether the LHC represents an intolerable danger is, in my view, an open question. I have not endeavored to provide a definitive answer. But I think the courts should. […] Otherwise, the wildly expanding sphere of human knowledge will overwhelm the institution of the courts and undo the rule of law—just when we need it most.”

Over all, this new 90-page study provides well structured and strong evidences that several concrete disaster scenarios cannot be excluded to arise from the big bang machine and thus have to be taken very seriously by scientific and political decision makers and the public. Especially, the paper provides important orientation to courts and for further studies. As a scientific document, it is now without doubt central in the LHC risk debate.

Recently, an international group of critics and experts filed a detailed complaint at the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations at Geneva concerning risks and dangers of the planned experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A law suit filed at the European Court of Human Rights is pending, another at the German Constitutional Court, an American case is in appeal.

Risk assessment expert and ethicist Dr. Mark Leggett concludes in a recent study, that the CERN safety report is, “from a number of authoritative standpoints, out of date”, “has a conflict of interest” and satisfies less than a fifth of the expectable criteria. Chaos theory pioneer Prof. Otto E. Roessler estimates the risk of a black hole disaster at 15% if the experiment should continue as planned. Astrophysicist Dr. Rainer Plaga in well respected studies insistently talks about a “residual risk”. Well known physicist Dr. Tony Rothman suggests a permanent mechanism to deal with science and new technology concerns. Leading risk researcher Prof. Wolfgang Kromp supports a special environmental impact assessment of the LHC. Famous “thinker of speed” Prof. Paul Virilio strongly criticizes the experiment. Scientists from the “Future of Humanity Institute” at the University of Oxford conclude in a study that the CERN safety report cannot be the last word in the case.

Further info and contact to LHC-critical groups having filed law suits concerning LHC dangers:

Detailed summarizing critical article with many references by Prof. Lloyd B. Lueptow, suggesting to halt the experiments:
“Will Physicists Destroy the World? The Large Hadron Collider and the Threats of Catastrophe”:http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-11-11#feature

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“conCERNed international” filed a detailed human rights complaint at the UN against the CERN member states for not having carried out their legal responsibilities to ensure citizens’ safety.

Please take a closer look at this important paper, which includes a detailed physical section describing the scientific discourse yet also has a general and very profound approach to the topic. It provides clear suggestions to improve safety and to urgently set new standards in high energy particle collider risk evaluation and features many critical quotes of well known scientists from different disciplines including physicists, astronomers, risk researchers, philosophers and legal experts:

GENEVA - The world’s largest atom smasher broke the world record for proton acceleration Monday, firing particle beams with 20 percent more power than the American lab that previously held the record.
[…]

This is what CERN officials exactly stated on the press conference. (According to this plan, there would be not enough time at all to closely study the results before increasing energy.)

1200 per beam within this year
When this runs well: a few changes
Then 3,5 per beams for several month (might open “new windows” in physics possibly)
Then when “learned” / “confidence” (in technical respects):
closer to 4,5 or 5 TeV in the second half of next year (2010)
(Then further plans are not very clear, apparently there are high costs involved)
Shutdown mode, without modifications no higher energy would be possible.
Then (maybe) maximum of 7 TeV per beam.

Some exact transcriptions from the same press conference demonstrate how open the question of possible outcomes is:

CERN director Heuer about what might be first discovered at the LHC:

“It depends how kind nature is to us. If we would know, then it would be nice but I need a crystal ball in order to predict it.“
[…]
“Give me a glass ball, a crystal ball, then I would know but I don’t know what nature has for us.“

Verdee (CMS): “We have this standard model. […] So, we have these prejudices which we have just gone through. But nature could have a complete surprise for us and that would be also very interesting. So one should not rule out the fact, we’ve just listed these theory things but nature could have done something different.”

Giotto (ATLAS): “Research is called research because we are going to find, to look for something that a priori is not well known. […] This is part of the charms. And I personally will be very happy in fact, I will be very happy to find something that has not been foreseen and that the nature in the end is always more simple and more elegant than our speculations of mankind and our theories.”

Re-Creating Creation, Take 2: The Large Hadron Collider Fires Up Again

(By Ali A. Rizvi, Canadian writer, physician, and musician)

[…]
And as of Friday, November 20, another group, very cleverly called conCERNed International, has filed a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee, protesting the LHC’s imminent restart.

Titel: If You’re an Inhabitant of the Planet Earth, A Lawsuit May Affect Your Rights
Date: November 23 2009
Source: http://classactionblawg.com/2009/11/23/if-youre-an-inhabitant-of-the-planet-earth-a-lawsuit-may-affect-your-rights/
Quote: ‘The complaint, filed with the UN Human Rights Committee, seeks to save every inhabitant of the planet (and perhaps the entire solar system) from what could be imminent annihilation if CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland creates micro-black holes when it begins to smash subatomic particles together at near light speed this month. The complaint was filed by a group calling itself ConCERNed International, who seeks to enjoin the project until CERN’s scientists can prove that there is no chance that the collider will pose a danger in the form a “mass production” of “microscopic black holes.” The UN Human Rights complaint follows an unsuccessful civil lawsuit last year filed in Federal Court in Hawaii attempting to enjoin operation of the collider.’

“It depends how kind nature is to us. If we would know that, it would be nice but I need a crystal ball in order to predict it.“
[…]
“Give me a glass ball, a crystal ball, then I would know but I don’t know what nature has for us.“

Verdee (CMS): “We have this standard model. […] So, we have these prejudices which we have just gone through. But nature could have a complete surprise for us and that would be also very interesting. So one should not rule out the fact, we’ve just listed these theory things but nature could have done something different.”

Gianotti (ATLAS): “Research is called research because we are going to find, to look for something that a priori is not well known. […] This is part of the charms. And I personally will be very happy in fact, I will be very happy to find something that has not been foreseen and that the nature in the end is always more simple and more elegant than our speculations of mankind and our theories.”

I used to think that nothing would happen with the Large Hadron Collider. I even made fun of the nutters saying it’s going to destroy the world. After reading CERN Director for Accelerators’s latest statement, I’m not so sure:

The LHC is a far better understood machine than it was a year ago. We’ve learned from our experience, and engineered the technology that allows us to move on. That’s how progress is made.

Wait wait wait. WAIT, Mr. Director for Accelerators Steve Myers Sir. What do you mean that the machine is “far better understood” now? How could they spend a billion brazillion dollars in this thing and don’t understand it in the first place? Do we really know what are we up to here? Should I book a ticket to Costa Rica and go watch the end of the world from the beach?
[…]

Very interestin comments by risk assassement expert and ethicist Mark Leggett PhD (Griffith Univesity) to a report at “Science Insider” about UN Complaint of conCERNed, here the first one:

“Some of the same critics filed unsuccessful lawsuits last year to try to keep the LHC from running, notes CERN’s Gillies. “Their arguments are as baseless as they were year ago,” he says.

I suggest the following shows that the court action MR Gillies refers to was in fact in an important sense successful, and that a key plank of the argument – on flaws in the method used by CERN to assess the risk from running the LHC – is far from baseless.

In 2007 and 2008, a court case was held in the US seeking an injunction against the LHC continuing. This case was dismissed, on the grounds that the US court did not have jurisdiction. [62] However, in her decision, concerning decision-making on the risk from the LHC, Judge Helen Gillmor wrote these history-making words: “It is clear that Plaintiffs’ action reflects disagreement among scientists about the possible ramifications of the operation of the Large Hadron Collider. This extremely complex debate is of concern to more than just the physicists.”

The European Commission guidelines “Improving the knowledge base for better policies (2002)”, “commission on the collection and use of expertise” Principles and Guidelines state that one of the three determinants of quality of advice is pluralism:

“Wherever possible, a diversity of viewpoints should be assembled. This diversity may result from differences in scientific approach, different types of expertise, different institutional affiliations, or contrasting opinions over the fundamental assumptions underlying the issue. Is it appropriate to mobilise experts beyond the scientific community? These may include, for example, lawyers, ethicists…”

How then do the latest official reports assessing the risk from the LHC compare with the EC guidelines on plurality of expertise?

The LSAG report itself was conducted by five particle physicists. The associated report “Astronomical Implications of Hypothetical Stable TeV-Scale Black Holes” was conducted by two particle physicists, one of whom was also in the LSAG report team. It was reviewed by the 20-member CERN Council Scientific Policy Committee, also composed only of particle physicists. All of the contributors to the CERN 2008 safety review (including the SPC report) are presently listed in the CERN directory.

So all these 26 were particle physicists. Despite this large number, none were “experts beyond the scientific community… for example, lawyers, ethicists..”, despite that being recommended by the European Commission.
This particle physicists-only advice was then put to CERN Council for consideration and advice to the relevant governments controlling CERN. CERN Council represents the 20 governments funding the LHC and consists of 14 particle physicists and 14 civil servants.

Half of the Council is therefore the interest group concerned – particle physicists. And the other half is also not immune from possible vested interest. This is because the Council as a whole has approved the prior funding of and building of the LHC. As such, CERN Council is far from arms-length from the project, and may feel a bias to justify its prior decisions of support.

Given this possibility of bias in the decision-making within and about the LSAG report, the complainants are uneasy because of reference to a basic sense of fairness. This is embodied in one of the rules of natural justice or procedural fairness: the rule against bias (nemo debet esse judex in propria sua cause – “no one to be a judge in their own cause”).
It should also be pointed out that the EC guidelines on the use of expertise arose precisely out of an event (the mad cow disease crisis) in which people died partly because of narrowly-based scientific advice. CERN, also assessing the possibility of events in which people may die, has used none of the EC guidelines, indeed gives no inkling that it is aware they exist, and has produced exquisitely narrowly-based advice.
With this background, a case can be made - and is in the Complaint to the UN - that in regulating the risk from the LHC CERN Council has a conflict of interest, and is under-constituted to assess such a novel, potentially catastrophic and therefore sensitive risk. On this basis, a new review panel based on best practice for such panels should be set up to advise national, EU, and governments worldwide on the adequacy or otherwise of the LSAG report, and the LHC not produce collisions until that panel has reported.

Somehow ignorant article in Times Online by an author obviously not having read the UN complaint, but judging about it, as if he already knew, that the appearance of a “dragon” was as likely as the LHC-risks in discussion. This comes from a very misleading but frequently quoted argument based on quantum physics, that anything could happen all the time but with extremely small chances. This is not what the LHC risk discussion is talking about. Logically, it is not as likely that anything else would produce the same than the LHC might produce…

To the comment of spokesman James Gillies (CERN):
The ECHR suit is still pending.
And how does Mr. Gillies “know” about the arguments in the UN Communication just after the detailed 70-page paper has been published? This paper indeed will need a closer study.

“conCERNed would like to see the formation of an agency similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to regulate particle accelerators. But I wouldn’t necessarily expect this to stop collisions in the coming weeks. Given what I’ve seen of IAEA diplomacy, even if the UN decides to form such an agency, it will take most of the LHC’s first physics run just to draw up an agenda for its inaugural meeting.”